A Study Of The English Writing Teaching Effect In The Junior High School Based On The Notion "Contents Creation, Language Imitation"

Based on the Usage-based Theory, Wang(2014), the well-known Second Language Acquisition expert, proposed the basic notion of improving foreign language teaching and learning efficiency ‘in order to learn a foreign language well, language should be imitated and the contents should be created, and language imitation and contents creation should be closely combined'. There are two ways to achieve ‘Contents Creation, Language Imitation', including conversations with native speakers and the continuation task. "The continuation task" means that learners are first provided with a text that consists of a story with its ending removed. Then learners are required to read the text of the incomplete story and finish it through writing in the most coherent and logical way possible. The continuation task also has dialogue features. The continuation task is constructed in the context of language, with contents creation and language imitation. He holds a view that in the learning setting which is lack of conditions for listening and speaking, but sufficient for reading and writing, the continuation task is a valid way for foreign language learning which embodies the important value of teaching.This research aims to examine the effectiveness of the notion about foreign language learning and teaching by conducting an experimental study based on ‘Contents Creation, Language Imitation'. The focus of this research explores whether the continuation task can promote the learners' English writing level and reduce the learners' English writing anxiety. Two specific questions are(1) Does the continuation task significantly reduce students' writing anxiety?(2) Does the continuation task significantly improve students' writing performance? Participants, whose English proficiency was not significantly different, were 81 students from two natural classes of Grade Seven from a junior high school in Luo Gang District, Guangzhou. These participants were divided into two groups: 40 students in experimental group(EG) and 41 students in controlled group(CG), who aged from 13 to 14 and had learned English for 5 years. Two kinds of research instruments were used in this experiment, including two writing papers and two questionnaire scales of foreign language writing anxiety. During the experiment, experimental group implemented the continuation task in English writing teaching while the current common writing teaching method, that is, topic writing, was arranged in the controlled group. The experiment lasted for 16 weeks. The means of post-test writing in EG(9.99) is 2 higher than those in CG(7.99), and the means of post-experiment questionnaire of foreign language writing anxiety in EG(66.53) is 10.01 lower than those in CG(76.54). Results show that(1) The continuation task reduces students' writing anxiety.(2) The continuation task improves students' writing performance.The implications of this research for teaching are described as follows. The continuation task is a valid approach for L2 learning, which can not only be carried out in college and senior high school, but also suggested being necessary to be put into practice in junior high school. Also the continue task can be used as a method for English writing teaching evaluation as well as a way for improving English writing ability. Furthermore, it can be assisted to help the teaching of English listening and grammar in junior high school.